RegGuheert wrote:Clearly Barrow is warmer, but it appears that according to The Alaska Climate Research Center the average temperature change for Alaska for the 38-year period through the end of last year is -0.1F.

Amusing. Yet another case of down the up escalator. For the whole period of record: "the average change over the last 6 decades is 3.0°F."

Don't forget species extinction as one of the main problems of animal agriculture.

Going vegan would be nice especially since the reduced methane emissions (see below) would help fix the problem in the short term while we figure out our carbon issues. Unfortunately most people don't care about global warming if it requires any sacrifice at all (even people preaching how bad it will be and climate scientists). Even eating less meat would help a ton but people aren't about to sacrifice.

Methane has a large effect (100 times as strong as carbon dioxide) for a brief period (having a half-life of 7 years in the atmosphere[6][verification needed]), whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period (over 100 years). Because of this difference in effect and time period, the global warming potential of methane over a 20 year time period is 86.

Very good comment listing some of the innumerable heat records set in the last year, and also since anthropogenic heating began.

Also presents a good summary of the projections of much higher temperatures, and many more heat records, in the future:

Yearly, Monthly Heat Records Dissolve In 2015's Global Onslaught

By: Jeff Masters and Bob Henson

The year 2015 ended in spectacular fashion, winding up as the warmest year in more than a century of recordkeeping--and it’s wasn’t even close to a photo finish ...

The margin of 2015’s victory is itself noteworthy. NOAA calculated that 2015 beat the previous record warmth of 2014 by 0.16°C (0.29°F), which is the largest such margin for any year...

The second year of a major El Niño tends to warm the global atmosphere even more than the first, as the atmosphere gradually adjusts to the ocean-surface warming. This means that 2016 has a very good shot at breaking the global temperature record that was just set by 2015...

In the vehicle market for example, we probably can no longer depend on the ICEVs (and hybrids/PHEVs) we are manufacturing today to wear out, before we need to replace them with lower-emission vehicles.

Instead, we would probably need to institute buyback-and-crush programs for those vehicles coming out of the world's factories today, to prevent them from continuing to spew CO2 for decades to come, further contributing to pushing us beyond ~2C of heating.

Not much chance of building the worldwide political consensus to bring that about, IMO.

February Smashes Earth's All-Time Global Heat Record by a Jaw-Dropping Margin

On Saturday, NASA dropped a bombshell of a climate report. February 2016 has soared past all rivals as the warmest seasonally adjusted month in more than a century of global recordkeeping. NASA’s analysis showed that February ran 1.35°C (2.43°F) above the 1951-1980 global average for the month, as can be seen in the list of monthly anomalies going back to 1880. The previous record was set just last month, as January 2016 came in 1.14°C above the 1951-1980 average for the month. In other words, February has dispensed with this one-month-old record by a full 0.21°C (0.38°F)--an extraordinary margin to beat a monthly world temperature record by...

Averaged on a yearly basis, global temperatures are now around 1.0°C beyond where they stood in the late 19th century, when industrialization was ramping up. Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University) notes that the human-induced warming is even greater if you reach back to the very start of the Industrial Revolution. Making matters worse, even if we could somehow manage to slash emissions enough to stabilize concentrations of carbon dioxide at their current level, we are still committed to at least 0.5°C of additional atmospheric warming as heat stored in the ocean makes its way into the air, as recently emphasized by Jerry Meehl (National Center for Atmospheric Research). In short, we are now hurtling at a frightening pace toward the globally agreed maximum of 2.0°C warming over pre-industrial levels...

...While a strong El Niño has given global temperatures a boost, the main reason for the spate of intensely warm months is the long-term warming of the planet caused by the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, scientists have found...

The incredible heat so far this year — even though it is only two months in — could set the planet up for its third record warm year in a row, besting the record set just last year. 2015 also saw the biggest single-year jump in carbon dioxide levels at the observatory atop Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, a record that came in part because of El Niño’s influence on greenhouse gas-emitting wildfires in the tropics.

The biggest area of anomalous warmth in February was the Arctic, which also had record-low sea ice levels during January and February.

It’s likely that as the year goes on and El Niño continues to wane, that the monthly temperature anomalies will also ease off, but when and by how much remains uncertain, Blunden said.

edatoakrun wrote:Instead, we would probably need to institute buyback-and-crush programs for those vehicles coming out of the world's factories today, to prevent them from continuing to spew CO2 for decades to come, further contributing to pushing us beyond ~2C of heating.

That is even worse than doing nothing. Any harsh act like "lets destroy this to make a better one" must be heavily reconsidered. Maybe closing power plants before they get old makes sense but not crushing vehicles that consume 50% more fuel than Prius. The best thing for CO2 reduction (total sum on the whole Earth) is apply worldwide carbon tax. And not a single country in the world could ignore that, even North Korea or Iraq. All money should go on clean energy incentives and not on poor people. Unfortunately this is most likely not possible without casualties, millions.

That way nobody has to deal with all kind of regulations and incentives, crush this-make this. Counting carbon is really easy. Cars count on oils, tires, fuel, production. Homes and appliances count on energy efficiency by counting electricity/flammables used. etc...

If China or India does not cooperate then no point on going crazy here. VW cheat kills a dozen* after two decades, China kills a million*.. each year.

With so many new heat records being reported so frequently this year, it is not practical to post them all.

The graphic below is one attempt to visually summarize the crises as the rise in temperatures has accelrated:

See Earth’s Temperature Spiral Toward 2°C

The steady rise of Earth’s temperature as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere and trap more and more heat is sending the planet spiraling closer to the point where warming’s catastrophic consequences may be all but assured.

That metaphoric spiral has become a literal one in a new graphic drawn up by Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. The animated graphic features a rainbow-colored record of global temperatures spinning outward from the late 19th century to the present as the Earth heats up...

The graphic displays monthly global temperature data from the U.K. Met Office and charts how each month compares to the average for the same period from 1850-1900, the same baselines used in the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

At first, the years vacillate inward and outward, showing that a clear warming signal had yet to emerge from the natural fluctuations that happen from year to year. But clear warming trends are present in the early and late 20th century...

NYT has a good story about the effect of present and future seal level rise on USA coasts, concluding with the inevitable results of our actions.

Flooding ofCoast, Causedby GlobalWarming, HasAlready Begun

Scientists’ warnings that the rise of thesea would eventually imperil the UnitedStates’ coastline are no longer theoretical

...For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline.

Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical: The inundation of the coast has begun. The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes...

In 2013, scientists reached a consensus that three feet was the highest plausible rise by the year 2100. But now some of them are starting to say that six or seven feet may be possible. A rise that large over a span of decades would be an unparalleled national catastrophe, driving millions of people from their homes and likely to require the abandonment of entire cities...

The region has one mayor, Philip K. Stoddard of South Miami, who is a scientist himself — he studies animal communication at Florida International University — and has been a close reader of scientific papers about climate change since the 1990s.

“I remember lying in bed at night thinking, ‘I hope this isn’t real,’” Dr. Stoddard, a Democrat, recalled. “I hope other data comes in that contradicts it. It took me several years to get my head around it and say, ‘Oh, God, it is real.’”

Now he is focused on easing the pain for South Miami, with a $50 million system of sewer pipes to replace septic tanks threatened by the rising water table.

“You can play it really badly and let unpleasant things happen earlier,” he said. “Or you can push them off by doing some infrastructure repairs and some thoughtful planning.”

He is, though, under no illusions about the long-term fate of the region he calls home.

“We’re putting enough heat in the ocean to send water over us, no question,” Dr. Stoddard said. “Ultimately, we give up and we leave. That’s how the story ends.”